A few more photos

As we are leaving tomorrow this will probably be our last blog until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. This has been a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm so glad that we were able to share it with everyone at home. I can not wait to get home and hug Andrew.

Andrew, once I get you I'm not letting you go!

Here are a few final pics.

K.

Anslee asleep in the hotel crib

Terri & Anslee in front of the "critter market"

What would we do without Uncle Joe. I'm not sure that I can explain how critical he was to this trip!!!!

All the vendors outside their shops waiting to sell the new parents items to take home

Terri and Anslee at Lucy's. Best hamburger in China. I'm not sure that is saying much.

Our last day in China

These eleven days have flown by. We are excited and a little sad at the same time. Anslee is used to these foods, smells, sounds and it is all going to change tomorrow. I hope we've taken enough pictures and video for Anslee. I know we'll come back some day but until we do she is going to have so many questions.

Yesterday we had our ceremony at the U.S. Embassy. They told us that our babies are now ours and when we land in the U.S. they will be American citizens. We also received her visa. She was not feeling well so we came straight in to give her a bath and a bottle. The picture below is right after we got back to the hotel.

Last night Anslee had such a high fever and we couldn't get it to go down. Poor baby...

This is where we ate dinner on the two nights she was sick. Right outside our room. Keith kept accidentally buying vanilla coke instead of regular. He said he can't read Chinese yet.

Today we were able to go shopping and sightseeing around Guangzhou. We had lunch at Lucy's. Anslee is eating congee again.

The hotel provided us wih a stroller.

what a day!!

We didn't have a second to post yesterday!


Yesterday we flew from Chongqing to Guangzhou. It was about a two and a half hour flight. I am sure all the Chinese businessmen on the airplane were not to happy to see our nine babies boarding the small plane! Anslee has a cold so for the first time since we were at the orphanage she was a little fussy. She fell asleep right as the plane was landing and woke up as we were getting off the plane.

It is amazing how different each province is that we've visited.
In Beijing everything was covered in coal dust. You couldn't see the sun because of the pollution. They said it is the worst in the winter. It was freezing cold! I read a book that said the trees in Fuling looked gray like they had been in an attic for years. I found it much more accurate for Beijing.

In Chongqing the sun rarely shines. It is rainy and polluted. I did love this city though! It looked much more beautiful than Beijing to me. I loved the hills and the people there. The temperature was in the high forties to mid fifties.

In Guangzhou the sun is shining, there are palm trees everywhere and the temperature is like Orlando, Florida! The babies squinted for a while until they got used to the sun. They all love the shadows since they've never really seen them before!!

This is a picture of my friend Sherry (from California) and her baby Sarah before we boarded the plane.



After we landed, we drove an hour to our hotel. We let the babies rest an hour and then we had to go get visa photos and then their medical exams. We had about a 20 minute walk to the medical exam and Anslee fell sound asleep in the baby bjorn. She was exhausted since it was 3pm and she hadn't had a nap.

We arrived at the examination office and were all handed our medical forms. Then we had three stations to take the baby. The first one was a ear/eye/throat check. Anslee was still sound asleep so the doctor started softly slapping her little cheeks. I was trying to wake her quickly so the doctor would stop. She didn't wake so the doctor shoved the tongue depressor down her throat. That woke her up and as you can imagine she was not happy!! (me either!) The next station weighed, measured her height and took her temperature. She was miserable at that point and she had a fever. So the doctors start running around and talking in chinese so we had no idea what was going on. I called Zhou over and he said to go to the next station and then to have her temp rechecked. I went to the next station where the doctor does a quick physical examination and the doctor found a rash. So he looks and saw she had a fever and he starts running around. I was so stressed! They rechecked her temp and sent us to a room. Zhou came out and said if it is contagious we have to stay in China until she is better. Keith and I looked at each other and then Keith said "so do we have to stay?!" and Zhou said no because this isn't like measels or chicken pox. Thank goodness!!!!!!!!! Although we have enjoyed our trip we are ready to be home.

December 14th

Today we visited the Ghongquing zoo. Andrew asked that we put pics of the animals on the site. All we had time for was the panda and tigers because it was raining. I've got video of the animals for you when I get home Andrew.

Did I mention that I went to a local market and got 2 waters, 4 beers, and some food, for 3 dollars!

Three Gorges Museum

As Terri noted on the last post, we visited the three Gorges Museum. It's really more of a beautiful park and the museum part is more an explanation of why the three gorges dam is being built. It is the largest water project in the world. The biggest issue is that when the dam is finished, it will flood many current cities. Residents are being relocated and historical land marks will be lost forever. Because this is a communist country the Chinese do not question it. They go along with all of the goverment hype. I'm sure that there will be a lot of benefits, but it is sad to see all that will be lost. Below is a picture of Fu Ling, were Anslee is from. I'm not sure if you can see the red and white bar in the picture, but everything below that line will be underwater. The number on the photo represents the 68,000 residents of Fu Ling that will be displaced. There were about 8 cities that will suffer the same fate. Upwards of 500,000 people will have to be relocated. The project will be complete in 2009. The large rock formation in the center of the picture has carvings that date back many centuries. It is used as a sort of agricultural predictor. It raises and lowers in and out of the water with the change in seasons. After the project it will be permanently submerged.






Here is a photo of the lady that tought us how to properly drink tea.


K

December 13th

We had a fun day today. We went to the Three Gorges Museum and and an authentic tea house. Keith will post pictures of these on another post. We learned the correct way to prepare and drink tea. Keith looked like a "bull in a China shop"! :-) While we were there walking through the park several of us were mobbed by groups of Chinese women. They were inspecting our babies and making sure they were dressed appropriately. Luckily Keith and I had really bundled Anslee up and passed the examination. Others were not so lucky. If you don't have the babies heavily layered the women got really upset. We have video to show this!

This adorable Chinese girl is the hostess to one of the hotel restuarants. Keith wants to adopt her too! We eat here every morning for breakfast - our favorite meal of the day. Anslee's favorite thing to eat is congee. That is basically just rice cooked with a lot of water until it is really thick and mushy. Keith's favorite thing is "crispy bacon".


The hotel provides a crib for the adopted babies. It isn't the most sturdy and the sheets and blankets aren't tight like we all do in the US but she seems to be very comfortable as she sleeps about 11 hours at night.

Anslee loves playing! She is just incredibly adorable when she is laughing.

Bath time is one of Anslee's favorite activities. She loves splashing and trying to grab the water.

Thanks for the posts. Jason emailed them so we were finally able to read them. We have such wonderful friends and family!!

T

More Anslee 3

Last series for the day. Although we have been able to update the blog, I can not actually view the site to see all of your posts. Don't let that stop you from posting, because we will read them when we get to Guangzhou.




Andrew, she is wearing her, I love my big brother, bib. She can not wait to see you. Sometimes she makes grunt noises like an Ewok from Star Wars. It's very funny!

More Anslee 2

Here is mom feeding baby. Notice how the bottle has a handle. In the orphanage the babies learn early on to feed themselves. She does not want us to help her.


What? You thought that I could live off of rice and noodles?

The locals don't know what to make of us. Some seem to think a Westerner adopting a Chinese baby is great, others not so much. See the guy just to the right of me in the pic. I'm not so sure he cares for it!
Anslee playing in our room.

More Anslee

The ladies with Santa.

I have not done this in a while!!

COLD!

All,

Sorry about the delayed posting. I'm having computer issues.

It is about 5:45 Sunday morning. We will have Anslee in just a few short hours. Yesterday was a looooong day. We started the day of visiting Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. Amazing to think we were actually standing in such a historic place. I'm not sure that I really thought that would happen. It was freezing cold. Let's put it this way, I actually had to buy a cap. All of the bodies of water we saw were completely frozen.

Our next adventure was getting a tour of what life is like in Beijing by bike. (see picture) These things have a name but I forgot it already. Locals chased us everywhere on their bikes and as soon as we stopped, they would surround us and start trying to sell. E, we need a few of these folks at the office. I'm making job offers!

We toured a middle income home. Most people in our country would have considered the conditions to be worse than our own poor. I guess it is all about perspective. The people were very proud of their home and I found out it would have been worth 2M in America. Amazing!

Our last stop was to a silk factory and then lunch at the Hard Rock cafe in Beijing before our flight to Chongqing, pronounced Chong-Ching. I tried to post last night but we did not get to the hotel until late and I was having computer problems.

We will get pic of Anslee on as soon as possible!

Love to all, especially you Andrew!!

K.

Gotcha Day!!!

All,

I've been having difficulty with internet access here in Chongquin.

Well today is the day we have been waiting on for 14 months. I can not believe it finally arrived. We did not get into town until late last night and did not get to bed until 11:30. That's very late considering we had been going to bed at 8 every night. Below you can see me counting out all of the cash for the big event. LL, thanks for the money belt.



We left the hotel at 8:30 this morning and had a 2hr ride to Fu Ling. In the picture below we just got off the bus and are walking to the orphanage which is just down on the left. Emotions were high and it was hightened by all of the locals watching us as we went by. I'm not sure how they feel about us adopting their babies. I'm sure it varies.

The process of getting the babies took about 45min. It went by so fast that I hardly remembered exactly how it happend. We got off the bus and a short while later we were back on with a new baby. When they first brought the babies out several of them were crying. They all quickly stopped except for Anslee. I figure that God gave us this one because he knew we could handle it and most of the people in our group were first time parents. We stopped at a hotel in Fu Ling and had lunch. By now all of the babies had stopped crying, except Anslee. We stayed strong and just rocked her and loved on her. By the time lunch was over she seemed to be getting used to us and was only crying off and on. After lunch we had the two hr trip back and a stop in Chongquin to do some paperwork. All of the babies fell asleep on the bus. After Anslee woke up she really seemed to be connecting with us. It was amazing how quickly that happened for all of the babies. She is absolutely adorable. Her paperwork hit the nail on the head, she is very shy but once comfortable will open up. Tonight in our room after we fed her and gave her a bath, she was playing and laughing up a storm. Be prepared when we get back that it really takes her a while to warm up to strangers but once she does, she has a fantastic prsonality. I know you all will get a kick out of her.

Andrew, we have been showing her your picture and telling her all about her big brother!!

Just out of the orphanage.

She loved looking out of the window on the bus. I'm sure it was the first time.

COLD!!!!!

Keith typed a whole post but we can't see it! He'll repost with the pictures tomorrow. We are in Chongquin and get to go to the orphanage tomorrow to get Anslee. It was surreal to walk into our room and see her crib in here. So far our trip has just seemed like a really great vacation!

Talk to you later!
Terri

Herro!

Thanks to everyone who posted We enjoyed reading all of your messages.

Today started off bright and early with breakfast at 7:30 and on the bus to start the days sightseeing at 9:00.

On our way to the Great Wall of China we stopped at the Jade Market to learn about jade and carvings. We are so lucky to have a guide who knows the language. See the picture below of our guide Zhou and me at the jade market.


Have you ever wondered what all could be carried on the back of a bike? We have seen about every possiblilty but the best one was the guy below. He was cooking sweet potatoes on a wood stove on the back of his bike! Mmmmmmmmm!


It was so cold hiking the great wall. All the Chinese people selling hats really tried to get Keith to buy one, but he didn't want to mess up his hair?! It was an incredible site to see in person!



Hey Andrew, Dad wanted me to stand in front of this camel so he could take this picture for you. We haven't seen any reindeer yet but we thought you would think this camel was pretty cool. We love and miss you!!!

After our visit to the great wall we went to a clossinie factory (i don't know how to spell this). I have a much greater appreciation for this art after seeing what it takes to create one piece. We also ate lunch there. This is a fuzzy picture I took of our lunch. It was really yummy except this fish tasted like licorice!


When we were at the great wall there were many vendors on the side of the road. We walked there with some others from our group. We were constantly accosted by Chinese people trying to sell various items. They were yelling two words to get our attention "herro!" and "one dorrar!". At one point two women had each of my arms and were pulling in different directions. I was laughing so hard I couldn't get away. Keith has video of this!

I can't wait to see what we do tomorrow!
T

Booger!!

Wow, what a day we have had. We left our house at 4:00am EST on the 7th and just got to our hotel at 7:00am EST on the 8th. That is 27 hours of traveling! As I type this it is about 8:30pm on the 8th here in China. So as all of or friends and family start the day we are about to go to bed.

Our first leg of the trip was great. A 5 hour flight from ATL to SanFrancisco. The flight had lots of empty seats and we watched Cinderella Man with Russell Crow. I'd reccomend it if you have not already seen it. Once in SanFran, we had a 4hr lay over.

The second part of the trip is when the dissapointment set in. Our flight was over booked, so we knew it was going to be crowded. Here were our issues:

1) I thought that the coach seats on an international flight would be a litte bigger than a intercontinental flight, not so.

2) The United web sight said that I would have a plug in for my laptop, not true.

3) And worst of all, Terri sat by the window, I had the center seat and an Asian man had the isle. Not even before we had a chance to push back did the man shove his finger into his nose and proceede to dig for gold. I thought that I was going to have to get him a shovel. Well if any of you know my wife, this was most upsetting. Especially since we had a 12 hour flight ahead of us.

For those of you that have never been on a plane for 12hrs, it is dreadful if you are anywhere but business or first class. Luckily they had some in flight movies, however the screen was very difficult to see. I have not slept since I got up at 3:00am yesterday. Terri had a few short cat naps.

Anyway we finally made it to Bejing. After a 1hr & 30min bus ride we were at the hotel. I'm already feeling like a fish out of water. When we got to our room, both of us needed to use the facilities, but we could not figure out how to get the lights on. After a while of anxiously jumping around I realized that you had to put your room key in a slot to get the power to come on. How wierd? I am attaching a photo of Terri and the power card holder.

Tomorrow we tour the Great Wall and see a show. We'll update again then. Hope all is well.

K.